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Monday, August 11, 2014

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Review
by Bob Ignizio

Starting
life as a small press comic book in 1984, the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles became a huge phenomenon as an animated kid's show that
debuted in 1987. There were a few live action films made in the early
nineties alongside the cartoon, and countless merchandising tie-ins
were sold before Turtlemania eventually burned out around 1996. Now
that those kids who made the show such a success are old enough for
nostalgia and to have kids of their own, it's time for a reboot.

The
plot of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
is that a bunch of bad guys with martial arts skills called the Foot
Clan doing dastardly deeds in the big city. Reporter April O'Neil
(Megan Fox) figures if she gets the scoop on the evildoers, she'll
get promoted to doing real news instead of fluffy human interest
stories with her cameraman Vernon (Will Arnett). While filming the
Foot Clan taking part in a heist, April is surprised to discover that
a quartet of vigilante humanoid turtles are fighting back. Her boss
(Whoopi Goldberg) doesn't believe her, but her deceased father's old
partner in cutting edge science, Eric Sacks (William Fichtner), takes
her claims very seriously. Because, as just about everyone knows the
moment they see Fichtner on screen, he's one of the bad guys, second
only to armored ninja warrior Shredder (Tohoru Masamune). Of course
it's up to the Turtles – Raphael (Alan Ritchson), Michelangelo
(Noel Fisher), Leonardo (Pete Ploszek, voiced by Johnny Knoxville),
and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) to save the day and make their sensei
Splinter (Danny Woodburn, voiced by Tony Shalhoub) proud.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
is the second Michael Bay production based on licensed characters to
be released this summer, the first being TRANSFORMERS: AGE
OF EXTINCTION. As one expects
from a Bay production, it's dumb, it's loud, and it's frenetically
paced. Anyone who cares about actual movies will probably hate it,
but enough kids will love it that we're sure to see a sequel.

Bay
only produced TMNT,
handing the directing reins over to Jonathan Liebsman (WRATH
OF THE TITANS, BATTLE
OF LOS ANGELES). Regardless,
this looks and feels like a Bay film. The biggest difference between
this and Bay's own work is that it's nowhere near as self indulgent.
Rather than the 3 hour endurance tests that are the Transformers
films, this is just a hair over an hour and a half. That
automatically makes it better than AGE OF EXTINCTION.
Also the plot, generic as it is, is not nearly as incomprehensible.
Which, honestly, is better than I would have expected. It still
sucks. 2 out of 4 stars.